So stepping back from my off-topic/snarkiness for a moment, I really do appreciate this thread for what it brings up.

On one level, I'm stunned by the choices that Stevens made in his translation, but it also makes me hunger for what other information was simply glossed over or omitted by 'translators' in other texts I've read. We put so much importance on the printed word and for many of us, these texts have been carefully studied and revisited as we've developed in our arts. As a reader of a translation, we enter into a trust relationship with that translator to be the accurate voice of the original speaker/author. Personally, examples like this not only make me feel frustrated, but betrayed in a way.

Thanks Chris for bringing this one up, it's a great reminder about how we have to approach our research.

Thanks! I'm glad that not everybody hates me.

Translations are always going to be filtered through the translator, so it's always going to be kind of tricky. I could be worse, you could be dealing with something like this.